Now, I don’t know whether this silly little pun was intended by the show’s creators, but it occurred to me while watching an old episode tonight that the young Venture brothers could be seen as their father’s Hank-’n’-Dean monster.

This may take a while to load, and it’s of rather low technical quality, but what the hey — give it a try. I tried turning it into a video file, but the supposedly transparent background (with the speckly bits I failed to remove) turned black when I opened it in Camtasia. It seems that once you’ve exported the hundred or so layers you’ve created to ImageReady, it’s too late to fix the background. That meant that I couldn’t add the sound effects I’d been planning (an opening “My friends,” a popcorn pop for each bandage going on, a nice tearing noise for their removal, and maybe some evil cackling for the big surprise ending), but that’s OK, since I’ve already blown the evening on this thing. The “special effects” for the Bottoms Up, Johnny post only took a couple of minutes and came out a hell of a lot better, it seems to me. So, not so long story about as short as I can make it, I’ve just uploaded it as a gif. Enjoy!

Do you remember that guy over on the left? It’s Funky Winkerbean. Frankly, I’m not particularly familiar with the comic strip. I’m sure I’ve read it a few times, but the only thing that stands out in my memory is that name — Funky Winkerbean.

I did a little research, and found out a couple of things that really set it apart from most other comics:

It takes place in an actual place: Ohio

It’s dealt with some serious issues, like war and the rights of the disabled

It had a major character die of breast cancer

But the thing that really struck me is that the characters have actually aged. Funky is no longer a high school student. How long has Archie Andrews been trying to get his diploma? That’s Funky Winkerbean on the right, at the age of 46, the co-owner of the pizzeria where he used to hang out. Off the top of my head, the only other comics I can think of in which the characters have aged are Doonesbury (rah!) and For Better or For Worse (blah).

What if Funky Winkerbean was some 20 years older still? I believe that may be him on the left, still living in Ohio. In fact, he’s serving as the mayor of Toledo.

Naturally, he’s changed his name. You can’t be mayor of a “Business Friendly City of the Future” with a name like Funky Winkerbean. So it just follows that, when he decided to sell the pizzeria, move to the big city and get involved in public service, ol’ Funky would drop the comical moniker and go for something a little more sophisticated.

I was supposed to go to the pharmacy today, and instead I sat here terrorized by all that terror in the streets. The bridges were closed! The River Chuck was closed! They even found one of these “packages” here in the ‘Ville!

So because of this panic over a cartoon character, I wasn’t able to pick up my drugs — the drugs that are supposed to keep me from panicking over stuff like cartoon characters!

If anyone on the news had bothered to mention that these tools of terror were LED Mooninites, I could have told them not to worry. Instead of that, this day, which was supposed to be a joyful celebration of gorilla suits, is now going to live in infamy as the day of the Boston Magnetic Light Scare. (I will admit, however, that for a day about gorillas to become famous for guerrilla marketing is kind of cute.)

Do you remember the episode of The Flintstones in which Fred becomes a scout master — the one where he goes to the big jubilee (or jamboree, or whatever it is scouts have) in Shangra-la-di-da Valley? No, this post is not about how the scouts treated prehistoric atheists and homosexuals. You’ll see where I’m going in just a moment.

Fred has been named the new leader of the Saber Tooth Tiger Patrol. He comes home wearing his usual schmatta, but with a difference: his tie is absent, and he’s got a hat, a kerchief, and a stick. Wilma sees him and asks, “Fred, what happened? Is there a war?” Fred chuckles and says, “No, this is a boy scout uniform.” Wilma makes some comment about how she’d thought maybe the army had gotten desperate and was scraping the bottom of the barrel, then does a double-take (or to be more accurate, her hair does a double-take) and exclaims, “A boy scout uniform???” If you watch the scene, you’ll hear how Wilma stresses the word “scout.” You’re likely to notice that it sounds a little odd.

That’s because, under normal circumstances, the phrase “boy scout” has the stress on the “boy” (ouch). I’m sure you’ve all heard numerous examples of this phenomenon. Every now and then, someone says something like “probably,” and it just rubs you the wrong way. It doesn’t feel right. It’s just not the way you’d expect it to sound. Whenever someone puts the stress on the wrong syllable (ahem — syllable), it’s called a Wilma, in honor of that modern stone age lady.

You’ll hear quite a lot of Wilmas if you watch shows on the eye of hell in which people are reading from cue cards or prompters, because they often don’t see a full sentence while they’re reading it, so they’re not always sure of where to put that little punch. Wolf Blitzer is the undisputed king of the Wilma:

A dozen years ago Republicans took control of the House and the Senate in mid-term elections.

So, what is the proper response to a Wilma? There are two, the more common being to shout “Wilmaaaaaa” the way Fred did in the closing credits of the show. My favorite, however, is to quote Wilma herself. I just love to say, “a boy scout uniform???” I say it rather a lot actually, especially when I’m in the Situation Room with Wolfie and the gang.